Beyond 100G Ethernet

With 100G technologies standardized, both in the context of Ethernet and the Optical Transport Network (OTN), 100G router ports and 100G optical transport equipment is now becoming commercially available. At the same time, heavily data-centric users are starting to ask for higher-rate interfaces. First speculations include 400G as well as 1T as the next possible Ethernet standards. In this article, we discuss interface technology options for Ethernet and OTN beyond 100G in the light of the current 100G standards, taking into account likely evolution paths of interface technologies over the next ten years. carriers have performed end-to-end field trials using prototype 100G equipment [1,2]. Significant commercial deployment of 100G technology is expected to take place starting in the remainder of this year. With 100G being commercial reality, the community has recently started to look into technologies beyond 100G [3]. The need for the next tenfold bit rate increase to 1-Terabit/s (1Tb/s, 1T) Ethernet has already been clearly voiced to keep up with the plethora of data services that ensure exponentially increasing network traffic of between 40% and 90% per year 1 [4], most notably by heavily data-centric users such as Google, Facebook, or the Amsterdam Internet Exchange [5]. Target dates between 2015 and 2020 have been named for the desired completion of a 1T Ethernet standard, even though the question whether the customer base will be big enough to start serious standardization efforts is not yet fully settled [3].